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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE |
FOR INFORMATION CONTACT: |
August 01, 2008 |
USMS Headquarters Public Affairs (202)
307-9065 |
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***Prepared for Delivery***
Remarks by U.S Marshals Director John F. Clark
at the SMART National Symposium on Sex Offender Management and
Accountability |
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BALTIMORE – Thank you. It is nice to be
back, addressing a group of people who share a common cause: the
accountability of sex offenders.
I thought I would begin by sharing a few good news / bad news items from a
recent Bureau of Justice Statistics bulletin:
Good news: 3,661 child exploitations cases were referred to U.S. Attorneys
in 2006.
Bad news: Child sex offenses are among the fastest growing crimes of the
federal criminal caseload from 1994 – 2006.
Good news: Convicted sex offenders sentenced to prison increased from 81
percent in 1996 to 96 percent in 2006.
Bad news: Most of those convictions involved child pornography.
Good news: Nearly 1,100 sex offenders were arrested during the recent U.S.
Marshals led fugitive sweep known as Operation FALCON.
Bad news: There are an estimated 100,000 unregistered sex offenders whose
whereabouts are unknown.
We don’t have to search far to find case after case, many ending tragically,
where someone has been harmed or even killed by an unregistered sex
offender. In fact, it is commonplace.
That’s why I am pleased to see national recognition of this important issue,
and the fact that we can have a major national conference to discuss better
ways to manage the sex offender problem is a great milestone.
This conference has brought together experts in law enforcement,
prosecutor’s offices, tribal leaders and other interested parties to make
the important step of collaboration and communication.
I want to spend a few moments to talk about the Adam Walsh Act and let you
know where we stand on implementing this important piece of legislation. We
just passed the two-year anniversary of the act being signed into law. Since
that date, U.S. Marshals have presented nearly 2,000 cases to federal
prosecutors for violations of the act.
By and large, we have made these cases with no additional funding or
personnel, just a top-to-bottom commitment to find these offenders and bring
them to justice. If I had to sum up the U.S. Marshals efforts to enforce
this law with no resources, I would say, “Make it happen.”
U.S. Marshals recently received some start-up funding that will allow us to
strengthen our apprehension efforts and begin work to open a Sex Offender
Targeting Center, which will also be staffed with analysts from the National
Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
The targeting center will include better intelligence and analytical
resources and methods to track offenders, as well as a Behavior Analysis
Branch - all of which will focus on helping investigators find offenders. We
are anxious to dig into the casework that, by conservative estimates, is
about 100,000 cases deep.
We will be ready to do our part, but we cannot be successful on our own. We
need your help. I urge state and local jurisdictions to track and be aware
of the sex offenders in their jurisdictions. The Department of Justice’s
national concept of safer neighborhoods and safer children truly begins at
home. In your city and on your street.
Just last June, the U.S. Marshals conducted our fifth, and most successful,
Operation FALCON.
FALCON, which stands for Federal and Local Cops Organized Nationally,
brought together over 4,200 federal, state and local police and sheriff’s
deputies from nearly 1,600 different law enforcement agencies hit the
streets to find and arrest violent offenders.
In the end, 19,380 of America’s most wanted were behind bars. They
collectively had more than 94,000 prior arrests. As mentioned previously,
many of those arrested were for sex offenses.
We are proud of what Operation FALCON has become – literally the most
successful fugitive apprehension operation in this Nation’s history. I look
forward to replicating – or exceeding – our efforts in the next operation.
We continue to use our six Regional Fugitive Task Forces and 85 District
Task Forces to aggressively pursue sex offenders. So far this year, Deputy
Marshals and our state and local law enforcement partners have apprehended
6,100 sex offenders nationwide. They are truly making a difference.
I’ve given you the bad news - an estimated 100,000 unregistered sex
offenders whose whereabouts are unknown. How do we approach the problem? How
do we take on this monumental task? It requires management and
accountability through a two-step process.
First, enforcement: We must use every investigative tool in our inventory to
track, find and apprehend those who knowingly and willfully try to avoid
registration.
Secondly, compliance: We must get sex offenders to willingly and voluntarily
register so that their status and whereabouts can be tracked. Everyone wants
compliance, but it is often offender driven.
In both circumstances, the future Sex Offender Targeting Center will help
facilitate this process. Our toolbox is getting bigger. Funding, resources,
intelligence gathering, communication and collaboration – at unprecedented
levels – should give us all a reason for optimism.
I know I don’t have to ask anyone in this room why all of this is important,
but sometimes the reasoning is made crystal clear – as with something that
happened during our recent Operation FALCON.
Out of these thousands of arrests we made, allow me to share one story.
While serving a statutory rape warrant during Operation FALCON, one of our
Deputy Marshals came upon the suspect’s residence and asked to speak with
the person in question. The suspect wasn’t home, but an acquaintance of his
who came to the door seemed very familiar with his criminal past and shared
that information, to include the name of an alleged rape victim of his – a
12-year-old girl.
This took our Deputy aback, since the victim had the very same name as a
local girl that she had taken under her wing as part of the area’s Big
Brothers/Big Sisters project. In fact, a picture of the two had a prominent
place on the Deputy’s desk at work. A little further questioning revealed
that this was in fact the same girl. For this Deputy it was now very
personal, and this criminal was destined to be behind bars in short order. I
can guarantee you this Deputy - and her fellow officers - was determined to
make that happen. The fugitive sex offender was arrested shortly thereafter.
This is just one example of the need to have strong national laws,
aggressive law enforcement efforts and a determined prosecutor working to
protect the most innocent among us.
I thank you for your time and ask just one thing of each of you. Go back to
your jobs motivated to make a difference. There is no more noble cause than
to protect our society from sex offenders. Take a strong look at your sex
offender registry process and see how it can be improved.
Do something about it - please.
Thank you. |
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